


You raise me up

by idioticfangirl



Category: X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Still Have Powers, Deaf Character, First Meetings, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-19
Updated: 2015-12-19
Packaged: 2018-05-07 15:12:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5460950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idioticfangirl/pseuds/idioticfangirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erik has never been well known for his self-control.  So when he sees Charles, handsome as he is, who can blame him for letting his feelings get the better of him?</p>
            </blockquote>





	You raise me up

In Erik's defence, this was the final straw. He had been summoned to this massive building, filled with smarmy lawyers and mutant-phobic arseholes, specifically because they wanted all mutants to 'come out' (their words, not his) to the government once every two years. The new law kept the normals happy, kept them thinking like the mutants were under control, but Erik had enough shady contacts (hell, he was a shady contact) to know that the mutants were stirring. If this carried on, they would rise.

Of course, his power being what it was, Erik was mistrusted by all of the lawyers that he met with. He couldn't blame them really, not when his 'case worker' had a metal hip that would be so easy for him to displace, or worse. 

So when he got to the lift, everyone around giving him a wide birth as they stared at him, and saw the most attractive man that he had ever seen holding the door of it to wait for him, he wondered whether maybe this day wasn't going to be as crap as he had thought.

The closer he got to the lift, the more attractive this guy became. He had brown hair smartly parted and slicked back, and the brightest blue eyes. His clothes were smart too, which only served to heighten the good looks. Looking at the numberpad, Erik saw that the stranger had hit the button for the same floor as he was going to.

Either a lawyer - Erik saw that the stranger was smiling and discounted that - or a mutant. This was getting better and better.

 

Thoughts of how when they reached the floor the man would leave, and they would never see each other again, emerged in Erik's head. There they mingled with his fury about being called to do this stupid, demeaning registering.

Erik's main flaw, even he knew, was that he was very susceptible to his emotions, particularly anger. He lost control for a second, no longer, and heard a faint snap as the lift cable was broken. The lift shuddered and slowed to a halt, leaving both him and the stranger staring at the ceiling in horror.

The stranger gestured to the emergency button on the pad, but made no move towards it. After a second a hesitating, expecting the guy to hit it, Erik moved forward to press the button and speak into it, "The lift has broken down?"

After a few seconds of crackling and hissing coming from the other side, a tinny voice came through, "We're getting someone to check it now. It should be about ten minutes. Please refrain from panicking and we apologise for any inconvenience caused."

Erik nodded boredly, feeling out to see if he could fix the cables, but the connection seemed broken beyond compare, and he wasn't particularly thrilled at the idea of fixing them anyway. His lift companion, on the other hand, was still staring at the doors like he was expecting them to open any moment.

"It's broken," Erik repeated, and once more got no response. He reached over and tapped the guy on the shoulder, and to his surprise the man jumped as he turned to him. "Hey? It's broken."

The guy furrowed his eyebrows in confusion, and pointed to his ears.

"The lift is broken," Erik enunciated fully, wondering if he was talking to an idiot. Still frowning, the man continued to point to his ears, more forcefully this time, and shut his eyes. When Erik showed no signs of understanding, the man sighed loudly and began to swiftly twist his fingers into interesting shapes. It took Erik longer than he would have liked to admit to realise that his companion was deaf, and groaned aloud.

"I'm sorry," he said, and began to clumsily sign back. Not that he knew any sign language, so what he was doing was desperately mouthing whilst pointing at himself and making apologetic facial expressions. He then tried to mime that the lift was broken, mainly by pointing at the emergency button and then at the doors, shaking his head. Then he held up 10 fingers to show that it would be about 10 minutes.

The man nodded twice, concisely, and Erik slowed to a halt, feeling like even more of an idiot than before. For almost 5 minutes, they stood in silence, while Erik silently berated himself.

'This would never have happened if you could just control yourself,' he thought, 'but nooo you have to go and get yourself stuck in a lift with some poor deaf guy who probably has to be in a meeting right now. Way to go!'

Suddenly, an unknown presence in his mind made him jump. It was buzzing, somewhat pleasantly, and then there was a voice speaking directly in his brain. "It is okay," the voice said, "I didn't want to be in my meeting any more than you."

"What?" Erik spoke aloud. His lift companion chose then to turn and smile at him, eyes glistening as he stared straight at him and the voice continued,

"I'm Charles."

"You?" Erik whispered, "How?"

"I'm a telepath. I hope you don't mind this, it's the easiest way for me to speak to people. I don't normally let other people know about my...abilities, but judging by the fact that you blame yourself for our current predicament I'd say that my secret is safe with you."

"You could have told me!" Surprising himself, Erik laughed at this rather than getting angry, as he may once have done.

"Sorry," Charles shrugged, looking amazingly unapologetic, as his voice spoke in Erik's mind, "but you look adorable when you mime."

Erik laughed harder, clapping Charles on the shoulder. "I guess we both lied to each other, then," he grinned, and Charles smiling back may have been the best thing that he had ever seen.

 

When they were finally freed from the confines of the lift, Charles and Erik were laughing and 'talking' as though they had known each other for ages, and Erik went to his meeting filled with a happiness and optimism that he hadn't felt in ages, buoyed by Charles' number in his phone and the promise of a date soon, maybe even later that day.

He still wanted to kill the 'case worker', though.


End file.
